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Tour De France

People think of biking as they do track and field. It's people doing what we all do, just they do it better or faster. Big deal! But when it comes to the Tour de France, it matters, I guess, to a few Europeans.

Just The Facts

The Tour lasts three weeks, and usually covers about 2200 miles...on a bike.

The Tour is broken into 19 stages (there are 2 off days). That means they average around 115 miles a day...on a bike.

Speeds reach 25-30 mph on flat stages, and up to 60-70 mph on the downhill parts of the route...on a bike!

There are different categories of climbs, none of which make any sense, so it's safe to assume they climb it like people climb everest, only on a bike!!!!!.

They do all of this,,...... on a BIKE!!!!!!!!!

The Early Days

The first Tour de France was run in 1903, so it was very jumpy and in black and white. Back in those days, cheating wasn't banned, but everyone used their just worked their butts off to get the level they were at ...just kidding. Everyone cheated, in fact, some of the earliest tours were characterized by cheating. The 1904 Tour finished with all the top four riders being disqualified because they all cheated separately. Well, at least they didn't cheat together, that would of sent everyone into an uproar.

Drugs

Everyone went crazy when we found out baseball players used performance enhancing drugs, because, well, who knew?Not even the players doing the drugs "knew" what they were doing. In the tour de france, however, a signifigant amount of past winners tested positive for performance enhancing drugs, and no one seems to care very much. I mean, that may just be because no one cares about the sport, and baseball was our "national pasttime"(to those over 90) , but still, I think we should be a little upset these guys are cheating to win some francs.

LANCE

Lance Armstrong? I don't know whether I should root for the guy or not. He won the tour 7 straight times(a record) and fought his way through cancer. .......but still, just like everyone else he probally cheated.I'm not for sure, he denied it, so i'll give him a pass for now. And the whole sport needs to be reformed, if no one else cheated he would have less of a reason to do so. ,,,,,but again, its cycling, so .. whatever.